david frum, two views. one based in reality.he other based in what i think is fair to say has grown over the last several weeks into a full throated attack on the fbi. >> but it's working. it does work. the fbi needs to be seen as above suspicion. this is an agency, remember, that has a dark past. and a dark past where it has participated in american politics in a way that it should not have done. so it's very important to culture of the fbi to be seen to be above suspicion. so if you have the president of the united states and a party in congress endlessly saying that the most routine things are indicative of fatal bias and improper bias, you can change the behavior of the fbi. so normal communications that people would have about their political views, that fbi agents are allowed to have, that occur in the ordinary -- that becomes something impermissible, a sign of bias. and step by step, the agency is changed. donald trump and his supporters are saying unless you have people investigating him who begin with what nobody would

. >> jonnings now, david frum, senior editor of the atlantic and daniel day, washington krobt for theonto star. david, what do you make of this republican undermining effort where they go to the point of saying the fbi is the kgb? >> it seems like this is building to a crescendo because there's relatively limited time here and at which point the mueller process is a legal process. once indictments are actually filed, once things go in front of the courts, then even if the president were to somehow find some way to terminate mueller, the indictments continue to grind and closer and closer to the inner circle and maybe reaching into the family, you know, while you're talking before about politics versus the law, what the president has just as power to pardon 20 as 2 but it looks dark pardoning 20 including your son-in-law and has to happen soon and locks like the republicans are working themselves into the moon and not just from fox whom you expect this and members of the house of representatives. >> daniel dale, in a country where 60% disapprove of president trump, it is somehow surpri

well you know here is david frum's representative but i imagine that you're probably taking that out of context and dully no not at all in this i took it exactly as i wrote it out and i said it say that ok i'll just dismiss it may i say i got out of contact don't get it ok really no yeah probably yes but may i address the point c.n.n. which i'm not here to defend i think they do a crappy job but c.n.n. apologized for its mistake when he didn't explain killers who you are it's why you know he's administering why he did not explain my point no transparency they demanded from everybody else has he demanded from donald trump but they give their viewers no transparency after with been doing for eighteen months ok never any kind of here to defend c i'm not i'm not here i'm not asking you to be their lawyer i don't care what they do i do i hear what this how do i get emotional when we have a really awesome bill in front you have a degree in it right of journalism i think you know what we what kind of responsibilities go along with the profession now live go ahead jump in go ahead i don't ha

well you know here is david frum's representative but i imagine that you're probably taking that out of context and dully no not at all and if i took it exactly from this i wrote it out and i said it say that ok i'll just dismiss it may i say i was out of contact i'll get it really no yeah probably yes but may i address to c.n.n. which i'm not here to defend i think they do a crappy job but c.n.n. apologized for its mistake when he didn't explain killers you words why you know he made that mistake why he did not explain my point no transparency they demanded from everybody else has a demand it from donald trump but they give their viewers no transparency after with been doing for eighteen months ok never any better here to defend c i'm not i'm not here i'm not asking you to be their lawyer i don't care what they do i do i hear what they'll do i get a little and we have a radio militant from you have a degree in it right of journalism i think you know what we what kind of responsibilities go along with the profession go ahead jump in go ahead i don't have a degree in journalism you kn

with me now as promised, steven ahrens who broke this story and nick ackerman and david frum, a former speechwriter for bush 43. steven, your response to this carefully worded white house denial of your reporting? >> we stand by our story. we went back to our sources. we acknowledge the denial, it's in our story, of course. we fairly represent the denial. we quote verbatim, but we stand by our story and we still believe it's true. >> david frum, let me bring you in here because this bank, as you have said before, is key. right now for folks at home who don't follow the trail of lenders and debts, and who would want to, it's complicated and can be boring, folks do know the things that this bank is behind. i'll put up on the screen. they're behind the d.c. hotel, they're behind trump international in chicago, they're behind doral in miami. what's important here as you look at this story, david? >> three points. the first is i remember back on election night or in the 48 hours after the election looking at the performance of the stock market. the stock market jumped of course when donald

. >> zani, when you look at this from europe, do you think those issues david frum talked about, afterthis right wing pop lewism in europe, how would you describe it. >> it's a really good question. how we have peak populism. and like saved, i would caution reading too much into alabama where there was a peculiarly awful off candidate. i would also caution too much against reading too much into the relative quiet we've seen in europe. david is right that the far right party in germany did remarkably well. we have macron's victory in france. he beat the populist le pen and his approval ratings are rising. it's been a plateauing perhaps this year. it's worth remembering this is against an environment of remarkable economic growth, kind of on both sides of the atlantic, the economy is doing very well. on both sides of the atlantic, people's real incomes are getting better and those cultural questions driving much of the backlash is still there. i think of this as a sort of multiyear phenomenon. it's not going away. >> zanny, one thing you talked about was macron's rise agprobable ratings.

let's get right to it with david frum, natasha bertrand and wendy sherman. david, your view of what is important about this interview and the portrait of the president we see tonight. >> right. president trump's motives i've come to understand can be seen as a triangle with three points. authoritarianism. you highlighted the quotes that are worrying on that front. the second is his desire to make as much money as he can out of the presidency. and the third and the one that may be we have not paid enough attention to is psychic neediness. that was on display in the interview. the need to present himself as somebody powerful. people need to come to me and his responsive to flattery and the comments about the president of china. how big a smile is on the president of xi tonight and thinking the show on the tarmac, what dividends paid off in manipulating the president's ego. >> ambassador sherman, you can build on the point david makes. and this is an interview with so much in it, one point when asked willing to make deals, he says, yes. the reporter follows up a

i was on the telephone with david frum and i said to david. on the afternoon of nine eleven whatever else the president says he should say that we will hold. responsible the states that support terrorists say it is a strategic break from the more modest policy so bush is pretty sessoms. i believe it represented a recognition. that we would never succeed against the terrorists if we went after them one at a time and as long as governments were facilitating the organization training equipping and financing of terrorist organizations we were never going to get it under control. and ambitious program for all out war a goal in line with neoconservative policy and thinking an approach supported by richard powell. dick cheney donald rumsfeld condoleezza rice paul wolfowitz douglas feith these are the advisors who have pushed his ear. joe wilson a career diplomat witnessed the rice. they came into office with the republican party and particular with the staffing done by the vice president and his office and the secretary of defense in his office. refe

joining us now, david frum and barbara mcquade. and, barbara, first to you on this final point made tonight in this report on foreign policy that the white house counsel was aware that michael flynn committed crimes, lying to the fbi, violating the logan act and that he communicated that to the president before the president tried to get james comey and the fbi to stop investigating michael flynn. >> yeah. this could be very significant information. yeah, as we have been discussing previously, one of the hardest parts to prove in the obstruction of justice charge is the corrupt intent. to know what was in a person's mind at the time they made the statement. at the time trump asked comey to let flynn go. and if he knew that flynn had violated the law by lying to the fbi and potentially by violating the logan act, by negotiating with foreign governments, then that certainly bolsters the argument that there is evidence of a corrupt intent there to support a claim for obstruction of justice. >> and, david, on a day where we have that k

it was quite a week for the press but instead of pausing for self reflection david frum of the atlanticese bungle stories prove the importance of trusting the media. >> the mistakes are precisely the reason people should trust the media. astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is a process of discovery of truth. astrologers never make mistakes, or at least they never own up to them because what they are offering is a closed system of ideology and propaganda. >> tucker: so the mistakes are the reason you ought to trust the accuracy. is it brilliantly counterintuitive or just stupid? that's the question. joe concha writes about media for the hill. mollie hemingway is a senior editor at the federalist and they both join us tonight. molly, first to you. i don't begrudge anybody at the right to make a mistake once in a while, i've made a ton of them for sure. i just can't help but notice that all the mistakes that the different channels are making are in the same direction. although mistakes seem to be kind of solidifying liberal views on things. >> just in this last week alon

. >> joining us now, jonathan capehart and david frum is back with us.he lester holt interview remains possibly the most important televised presidential interview ever done other than possibly david frost's interviews with nixon after he was driven out of office. but there he is saying, i'm thinking about the russia investigation, which is to say i'm thinking about michael flynn. >> it was bombshell news when it came out at the time when lester, you know, just happened to have that interview the day after flynn was fired. we fired him because he treated hillary clinton so poorly in the e-mail investigation. but he sits there and tells lester holt, i was thinking about russia, i was going to fire him because of russia. today, we see with the flynn guilty ply, that conversation, that interview takes on a whole new importance. and i'm not sure that the president realized then. and maybe he realizes now, how much trouble he's in. >> and david, there are reports indicating that michael flynn might have felt betrayed when the trump decided not to pay michael

the next person after me was david frum the "new york times," and his demand was $25 million, and whichkly came down, in his case, or in my case they called me the golden goose. a week after david was kidnapped i was out and went to the "new york times" and they started this group, same thing at cbs and the "wall street journal" and others have done, to the get what they're going to do. they said they called david the red rooster, what does that mean? they're not going to kill them. a kidnapping victim is a commodity. in my case they wanted to exchange my fixer, half his father come in as the collateral. if you want to take a loan out check your house, bank collateral. there it was a human being. in the kidnapping world the collateral is a human. next after that, real quickly, where it becomes extremely powerful is the execution of jim foley, which we all know about, and which is the second most remembered, , watch the remembed event on television since 9/11. there have been polls on this. the most remembered event and the american population is the towers coming down in that event. the

well i'm not here as david frum's representative but i imagine that you're probably taking that out of context and ugly no not at all and if i took it exactly from this i wrote it out and i said it say that ok i'll just dismiss it may i say i got out of contact i'll get it really no yeah probably yes but may i address that point c.n.n. which i'm not here to defend i think they do a crappy job but c.n.n. apologized for its mistake when he didn't explain killers you words why you know he died and it's doing why did not explain my point no transparency they demanded from everybody else has a demand it from donald trump but they give their viewers no transparency after with been doing for eighteen months ok never any kind of you to defend see i'm not i'm not here i'm not asking you to me their lawyer i don't care what they do i do i hear what they'll do i get a little and we have a really awesome bill in front you have a degree in it right of journalism i think you know what we what kind of responsibilities go along with the profession now go ahead jump in go ahead i don't have a degree in